


Washing Machine Heart

by r_alistair



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: F/F, Shinigami Eyes, Song: Washing Machine Heart (Mitski)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:42:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26700865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/r_alistair/pseuds/r_alistair
Summary: The scene in which Kiyomi asks Misa to dinner, retold, rewritten.
Relationships: Amane Misa/Takada Kiyomi, Halle Lidner | Halle Bullock/Takada Kiyomi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	Washing Machine Heart

_**Toss your dirty shoes in my washing machine heart, baby bang it up inside…** _

Kiyomi Takada walks with a polished elegance; practiced or effortless, it’s impossible to tell. Every step is marked, accentuated, with a click of high heels against marble. Misa thinks she can feel her heartbeat synchronising, beating in time with the sounds. In the little moments between steps, before clicks, she can hear her breath catch in her throat – every muscle in her body tense as she waits for the next; so she can feel her heart pound once more. It hurts, it does, but the emotions – the sheer overwhelming of their presence – is addictive.

_**I’m not wearing my usual lipstick.** _

A little faster, Kiyomi is walking now. She’s approaching someone – the tall, blonde woman who had physically restrained Misa yesterday. A trace of a scowl makes its way to Misa’s face, only to be cowed into submission by a smile. A reflection of the smile of the woman across the corridors, her glossy lips curled upwards. Misa licks her own, finds them dry. _Oh._

Misa doesn’t think she’s ever felt inferior before. But seeing Kiyomi Takada, tall and poised – all porcelain skin and crimson lips is making her shy.

Misa doesn’t think she’s ever felt jealous before. But seeing Kiyomi Takada, her head thrown back from laughing at something her bodyguard had said is making her gut wrench.

Misa doesn’t think she’s ever been in love before.

_**I thought maybe we would kiss tonight.** _

The woman, the goddess, the one who could make her believe, make her beg, catches her eyes. Raises an eyebrow. Waves her way. Beckons her forth. Misa’s legs are betrayers – they walk, trembling, before she can even consider ignoring Kiyomi. _Whatever for?_ Whether she’s wondering on why Kiyomi is beckoning her, or why she’d consider ignoring her, is unbeknownst to even herself. The second one is answerable, of course. _I don’t want you to see me cry._ As she steps forward, she brushes her fringe out of her face. _I don’t want you see my love._ Her eyes, her shingami eyes, making contact with Kiyomi’s. _I don’t want to see you._ The words floating above the grey-eyed woman’s head. _I don’t want to be inferior._ Her book under the mattress at home. _I don’t want to lose you._

A few more stops and she’s there. Standing in front of and looking up into the eyes of Kiyomi Takada. The other woman, the body guard, her name (her name!) marking her out to be one Halle Bullock, looks at her with apparent disinterest. But there’s something underneath it. Before she can even consider trying to figure out her truth, Kiyomi is talking, a gentle smile resting on her face.

‘Miss Amane! Well, I certainly didn’t expect to see you here. Especially after the... events of yesterday.’

_**Baby, will you kiss me already and,** _

There’s something smug thinly buried in Kiyomi’s words. A flat shield, a thin veneer, a miniscule pretence of kindness, of regret.

It’d hurt less if she’d just say it clearly.

‘Well,’ Misa starts, composing herself, standing a little taller. ‘Awards shows continue despite personal spats, don’t they, Miss Takada.’

The curve of Kiyomi’s lips. ‘Of course. And a… mature… idol with your experience undoubtedly knows that well.’

There isn’t a way to respond to this. Even if she could find the words, the lump in her throat would prevent them from coming out with any conviction. _Aren’t you meant to be an actress?_

Misa keeps silent.

‘No matter. Let’s see… I think we should settle all this…. unpleasantness between us.’ Another blinding smile from Kiyomi. Maybe she should be the actress. Or maybe that’s how she truly feels. Misa isn’t sure which would hurt more. ‘Are you available for dinner this evening?’

Misa thinks her heart has stopped. _It has nothing to beat in time with anymore,_ she thinks. There’s another possibility of course. A brown eyed boy and a notebook. But, one second, two seconds, there, she’s fine. _Fine?_ Kiyomi Takada just invited her to _dinner._ She hopes she can control her mouth more than her legs – if she hadn’t walked over here in the first place, she wouldn’t have had to experience all this. She’s unable to decide whether that would be a travesty or a blessing.

_**Toss your dirty shoes in my washing machine heart, baby bang it up inside.** _

‘Your schedule’s empty, isn’t it?’

Kiyomi Takada is cruel, Misa Amane decides. She strokes before she slaps, caresses before she catches your skin, no, your soul with her palm, her words. She’s a sharp mind in an elegant body and a sharp tongue between beautiful lips. She’s a contrast to… everyone. The stoic silence of her own bodyguard, the petulant manner of Misa’s words. Even amongst the others, no one has her degree of delicacy, or her acute eye. For a second Misa foolishly wonders if there are other eye deals, with other gods. Because it seemed that Kiyomi could see all your insecurities, all your imperfections, all your worries, at scarcely one glace. Before you even knew them yourself.

_Help me, Shinigami._ It’s a plea to a god long dead.

Misa swallows. _You can manage a smile, right?_ The expression feels unnatural, spread much too tight across her cheeks. But it’ll do. ‘That’s right. And very kind of you, Miss Takada. Did you have anything in mind?’

‘There’s a sweet restaurant nearby – small, and I can reserve a nice space for the two of us.’ _The two of us._ ‘I can make sure we’ll be alone – no paparazzi or overexcited fans to bother us. How do you say?’

She wants to say yes so badly. The thing she desires is tantalizingly within reach. And maybe away from all of this, things could be different. Leaving personal bias and unsubtle barbs at the door, they could speak – not as two women trying to one up each other (although Misa truly feels she’s just trying to hold her own), but just as two women.

She looks up into Kiyomi’s grey eyes, a gentle storm. _It’ll never happen._ And so, why does she still open her mouth to say the words?

‘Yes. I’d like that very much.’ _You must really dislike yourself. Maybe you know you deserve this._

_**Baby though I’ve closed my eyes.** _

Misa walks home. It would be infinitely more reasonable to take a taxi, or some form of public transport, but she longs for a moment of solitude. _Please don’t let him be in,_ she thinks as she opens the door to the apartment.

He isn’t.

Her sigh sounds eerily loud in the quiet of the empty room. The first sound the apartment has heard in a while (neither of them are home frequently) and it intends to savour it. Misa wants to savour something too – the memory of her and Kiyomi’s conversation. Either that or she wants to hit her head against the wall until she can’t remember it anymore. _Beat it until it stops moving._

She does neither of these things. She opens the door to her room, the air stale and scented gently with cosmetics, and sits down at her vanity, her dressing table. She doesn’t look for her name in the reflective surface of the mirror, but she knows it’s there.

_**I know who you pretend I am.** _

_I don’t even know myself anymore._ There’s a pretence, a performance, a _setting_ for everyone. There’s no one she’s herself with, and she’s rarely alone. And even then, even now, all alone, she’s not herself. She’s not anything. If someone walked in and said the room was empty, she would have believed them without question.

_**I know who you pretend I am.** _

_Who am I around Kiyomi?_ Misa wants to say the name out loud, to hold it in her mouth, feel it slide of her tongue. But she doesn’t want to think about the answer to the question. She knows the answer anyway – spiteful, petty, childish. In awe. In desire. In love. Misa squashes the word, but can’t do the same to the feeling. The butterflies of her stomach, the pink of her cheeks. The fact that it felt, at times, as if she existed only to look at Kiyomi. To hold her image in her mind. _To hold her dear…_

_**But do me ti…** _

It’s an impossibility. There’s not even an ‘if we met earlier’ in Misa’s mind. She fancies, for a moment, that they are standing at opposite ends of a widening chasm, just moments away from the gap being too large for either of them to jump over to each other, and only widening more. _How romantic…_ But even that’s not a visual metaphor that truly portrays their situation. _Their situation?_ As if Kiyomi thought of this at all. A pitiful thought. Besides, there is no widening chasm. Their islands were never joined together, close together, to begin with.

_**Why not me.** _

Maybe when Misa had the chance to reach for something, she shouldn’t have made it Kira. Maybe instead of acting on her anger, her will for justice and revenge, she should have acted on her will to love, to life.

_**Why not me.** _

Maybe then she’d be someone worthy of loving Kiyomi Takada.


End file.
